Project Summary/Abstract North Carolina is a rapidly growing state, currently ranked ninth in the nation in population. The North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Food and Drug Protection Division (FDPD) has the regulatory and jurisdictional authority to ensure public health of this population, including protection from threats in the food supply chain at manufacturing through distribution to retail. The Rapid Response Team program is an instrumental part of the food protection process. North Carolina has been an RRT state since the program?s inception in 2009 and we are proposing a 2 year project that will enhance our existing food safety and defense activities. The focus of this proposal is to continue strengthening response efforts by engaging our partner agencies in exercises and trainings to improve the capabilities of an integrated food safety system. We have successfully integrated partner regulatory agencies into the RRT which consist of following: FDPD Food Program, Feed Program, Dairy Program and Laboratory, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (Epidemiology and Environmental Health sections), NCDA&CS (Emergency Programs, Meat & Poultry, Public Affairs), and the FDA District. Under this cooperative agreement proposal we will conduct an exercise concerning an intentional contamination event to test the capabilities of our response systems. The exercise will use an Incident Command Structure to rapidly identify and effectively respond to the contamination event and removal of contaminated or adulterated food from commerce. This exercise will highlight how an integrated response to an all-hazards food emergency can be successfully mitigated by the engagement of all partner agencies. RRT competency curriculum workshops will help identify and define knowledge, skills, and abilities for RRT personnel. The end product will be a tool to help train RRT personnel, plus a best practice which can be used to support national program improvement for other RRTs. The progress the NC RRT has made through the years allows us to focus on improving the maturity and maintenance of our program as we strive to steadily augment sustainability plans.